This unit explores power in terms of the notion of 'capital'. We are guided here by Bourdieu's (1986) succinct The Forms of Capital. Bourdieu defined 'capital' as "accumulated labor"...which:
The first, and most important point made in this text, is that indeed, economic capital is just one form of capital of which he asserts there are three: economic, cultural and social. In addition to defining the scope and parameters of each form of capital, Bourdieu describes the ways in which different forms of capital can be converted into each other. Though not included in this article, Bourdieu's many publications on 'symbolic power' (e.g. "Language and Symbolic Power") constitute a fourth form of capital, and one he spent a great deal of his life theorizing.
Bourdieu's own interest in power stemmed at least in part from his experience as the child-of-a-working-class-family-turned-public-intellectual. In this transformation, Bourdieu was made aware of the very special kind of capital ('cultural') that came with being a public intellectual and how this capital could be converted into other forms (with limitations). He was interested not only in the different forms of capital but also, more significantly, in their manifestation--that is, the particular ways in which they were both performed and imprinted and how these 'imprints' (what he calls the 'habitus') had a tendency to reproduce themselves and the power relations of which they were a part.
Want to learn more?
We live in a world where increasing one's social capital works on increasing another's economic capital. How did social media feed into the equation at the fastest rate in history so far?
Read this article to find out: The trillion dollar #SocialCapital industry
Kapitzke's (2000) Information Technology as Cultural Capital: Shifting the Boundaries of Power provides an interesting take on technicality as an emerging cultural capital, and its role in contributing to technological innovation and educational change.
"in its objectified or embodied forms, takes time to accumulate and which, as a potential
capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form, contains
a tendency to persist in its being, is a force inscribed in the objectivity of things so that
everything is not equally possible or impossible."
Capital takes time to accumulate into its material forms (wealth, prestige, knowledge, social networks) but once it has manifest, it has a tendency to reproduce itself (wealth produces more wealth, knowledge more knowledge, social networks more networks) and thus creates an unfair 'playing ground' where some people can exert a lot of labor but yield little capital and others need not exert any labor whatsoever to get more capital. Capital is power.
The first, and most important point made in this text, is that indeed, economic capital is just one form of capital of which he asserts there are three: economic, cultural and social. In addition to defining the scope and parameters of each form of capital, Bourdieu describes the ways in which different forms of capital can be converted into each other. Though not included in this article, Bourdieu's many publications on 'symbolic power' (e.g. "Language and Symbolic Power") constitute a fourth form of capital, and one he spent a great deal of his life theorizing.
Bourdieu's own interest in power stemmed at least in part from his experience as the child-of-a-working-class-family-turned-public-intellectual. In this transformation, Bourdieu was made aware of the very special kind of capital ('cultural') that came with being a public intellectual and how this capital could be converted into other forms (with limitations). He was interested not only in the different forms of capital but also, more significantly, in their manifestation--that is, the particular ways in which they were both performed and imprinted and how these 'imprints' (what he calls the 'habitus') had a tendency to reproduce themselves and the power relations of which they were a part.
Want to learn more?
We live in a world where increasing one's social capital works on increasing another's economic capital. How did social media feed into the equation at the fastest rate in history so far?
Read this article to find out: The trillion dollar #SocialCapital industry
Kapitzke's (2000) Information Technology as Cultural Capital: Shifting the Boundaries of Power provides an interesting take on technicality as an emerging cultural capital, and its role in contributing to technological innovation and educational change.